Every morning begins the same way. I get up, get a cup of coffee, and sit in the window with my cat Cornell. We watch out the window and sure enough see my two favorite squirrel’s Chip and Tom, and the family of groundhogs scurrying around through what I call my jungle. My own backyard, finally, and boy do I have some serious ideas for it. Today is the day.
I throw on one of my old wife-beater tank tops, shorts, with my old tan timberland boots with paint splattered all over them, get outside and look around at my new project. First things first. I can feel the grass tickling my shins, and won’t get far if I don’t cut this stuff, so I better figure out how to wrk that old lawn mower in the shed back here. I did it too, no phone calls to dad, or the landlord, nope, all by myself, first time ever mowing the lawn. Now it’s time to make the fence visible. There are weeds and branches growing up and over the fence, all intertwined through the links. This should be fun…. All I am working with are a small pair of clippers that cost about 3 bucks from Job lot. I am determined. A few sweaty hours later, you could see through to the neighbor’s yard. I was finished. How about that! Now, I had my mind set on a garden, so I had to decide where I could start ripping up grass, and how big of an area without pissing off the landlord. I tried to start going wild just ripping grass out of the ground, it was not easy. I dug through the shed and found this old rusty big shovel. Perfect. I used to edge out the area that was going to be my new garden and started ripping up some grass. All of a sudden I could hear Cornell calling me from the window. He was hnugry and the sun was about to set. I quickly fed him, and rushed down the street to my grandfathers house down the bay.
My mom had been staying here caring for him while he was on hospice, otherwise, I never would have came which is sad to say. Gramp is not a super friendly guy, we have never spoken much, fair to say he is kinda a grouch, he only like things done his way and is very picky. His new house though, a beautiful condo, right on the water, so when we sit on the deck to eat dinner, it’s like you’re on a boat floating in the water watching the sun set. I start telling everyone about my days adventure, I can’t believe I have my grandfather’s attention. “You need a tiller”…what the heck is a tiller?..”you can use the one I have in the garage on Byron street, all the yard tools are in there” Is he talking to me? “Does that yard have good dirt, you need good dirt” “um, I don’t even know yet gramp I havent really gotten that far, I don’t even know what I am planting yet. I don’t have much room, and I just wanted to do some things for myself, and figured id help feed the groundhogs and squirrels that run through the yard” Everyone laughed but him. “You can’t have a garden with groundhogs, they will tear it up” Psh, nah I got this. “Where did you get this corn? Stop n Shop again? It’s not that sweet” haha moms turn “the farmers market, this morning!”Gramps corn was never good enough, this was literally an everyday dilemma. Right there I knew one thing I would definitely be planting.
The next morning I was even more pumped. The jungle looked all cleaned up, a little too bare actually but that was going to change in time. Threw on a wife-beater, shorts, Tims and then grabbed my 20 packs of seeds and out the door I went. I dug right in there, bare hands and all, I couldn’t seem to grip the grass well with gloves, so I decided to go with dirty fingernails for the day. I ripped out all the grass till I had a nice section for my garden. Not a big garden, but oh I would fit what I could. “You have to have good dirt” oh no. My dirt is dry, with rocks everywhere, big rocks small rocks, it was a disaster. Dirt is dirt though right, and I am broke, so I’m working with what I got. I laid out all my packs of seeds, and narrowing down which vegetables I wanted in the garden. I wanted it wild looking. I knew I was def doing the corn, I also knew I wanted my own pumpkins so I wouldn’t have to buy them when fall came, so that was a must. Watermelons, of course. Some string beans, maybe cucumbers, and zucchini so mom can make her zucchini blueberry bread. I doubt I will even have room for this tuff, but I will make it work. I tried reading the directions on the packets of seeds, but it was like reading jibberish. Who brings a ruler outside with them, rows hills give me a break, I would have had maybe 4 plants growing if I followed the directions, this yard was made to be a jungle. Plus, the groundhogs will probably eat half of it. It took all day. I was trying to be neat about it, and mark off what was what. I was covered in sweat. My wife beater was soaked, stretched out and filthy. The sweat dripping down my face I kept wiping with my dirty hands so I’m sure I looked like I just went down a chimney, and I could feel dirt all inside my boots. I actually liked that I looked the part. Geez now I know why gramp took so much pride in his yard work, I probably should of taken him up on his offer for those tools.Cornell was screaming in the window by now, so I got the hose and watered everything down. This is it, time to let Mother Nature do her thing.
This wasn’t easy, everyday I went to water my little jungle , I also would leave lettuce near the groundhogs hole, and throw peanuts as far away from the garden as possible, trying to deter everyone from the garden. I thought maybe I could feed them enough where they wouldn’t be hungry to come after my stuff. I know at first I wanted to share with them but after all the hard work, I wanted to be greedy. I was especially over protective of the corn. Right now they looked like thin blades of grass, last thing I wanted was an animal eating that or running it over. I wasn’t even sure it was corn at first but sure enough there were 6 perfect stalks growing in a row. This was getting fun.
As more time went on I had no clue pumpkins and watermelons grew in such extremely prickles vines. I had to keep trying to carefully move their growth direction so they wouldnt strangle the corn stalks. The corn was finally taller than my knee caps. They were so cute ! The stalks were getting so thick and strong compared to that thin blade of grass we started out with. They were starting to get the fuzzy tops poking out. It looked like a firework. Silver and purple. What kind of corn did I plant? Was this normal?? All I knew was I was growing corn stalks in my little Fall River back yard, and I was proud of myself.
I kept my Grampa up to date and im getting the most conversation out of him Ive gotten in my whole life time. We both share the love and pride of taking care of your yard.
One morning I wake up to see the groundhog (the big one ) rummaging through the garden. Whoa! I do not think so. So, new project for the day. My landlord has a pile of cinder locks in the yard, and I move one by one making a barrier around my garden. It doesn’t look pretty but it does the job. Perfect! I go to check out my corn and oh my goodness, EARS! There are little baby ears growing off the sides of the stalk. Clearly this is all working. Who said my dirt wouldn’t work !! Now, you can imagine my frustration when a few days later, cornell and I are watching out the window, and he perks up real quick…theres Chip! Climbing my corn stalk! He is at the top of the stalk,upside down, fluffy tail in the air with his little hands opening an ear of corn trying to eat whats there. I run downstairs with the peanuts yelling at him throwing peanuts everywhere, if anyone was watching I am sure it was a sight to see. I was honestly panicking. He ruined an ear before it even had time to fill in. I was devastated. The little buggers did that three times behind my back. It got to the point I started buying them corn and throwing it in the other direction just so they wouldn’t touch mine. I was determined to salvage my own corn.
It took a lot of extra work, but my jungle grew, and maybe I didn’t get as many crops as I wanted, but the corn stalks were definitely going to be awesome for fall decorations, and I atleast got one, just one absolutely perfect full grown ear of corn out my six corn stalks. Which if you ask me is pretty good considering I had 2 squirrels. I was tempted to eat it myself, but I gave it to my mom one day, and honest to god she didn’t say a word to my Grampa, but when she boiled it and served him his corn on the cob, he for the first time, did not complain. He actually said it was the best corn he had all summer. When he asked where she bought it and she told him Jessica’s garden, I swear to god I no longer questioned whether or not my grouchy Grampa liked me or not. We officially bonded. It was sad to say that it happened while he was on hospice, but corn was our thing. I put up some corn stalks in front of his house for fall, and since he made it till Christmas, for a gift I found this glass ornament of an ear of corn. He loved it. The man never smiled much. I couldn’t believe I was actually making him smile. And this all came from corn.